HeyItsMatt wrote:I don't know where Tony got it, although I've seen it elsewhere on the internet, but I think it is from the movie "Scanners".

Kitty cat with face is gone! The squirrel's interesting -- open to many interpretations. He could be embarrassed, or shy or (in case of this thread) cringing at the question or even laughing at it or hiding his eyes from Tony's exploding head. That's pretty good for a simple squirrel picture.

Also, I started learning Japanese out of some vague desire to know a second language + enjoying Japanese horror movies. I've watched a few anime series after I began learning it, but generally the manga/anime references go over my head. Solidarity, lalaith!

Solidarity, indeed.

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lalaith wrote:Kitty cat with face is gone! The squirrel's interesting -- open to many interpretations. He could be embarrassed, or shy or (in case of this thread) cringing at the question or even laughing at it or hiding his eyes from Tony's exploding head. That's pretty good for a simple squirrel picture.

Mike didn't like the weird spelling. And it was time for a change anyways.

I like to think that it's a squirrel politician, exiting from a woodland animal press conference, hiding his face in shame after having accepted illegal acorn contributions. Think Tom DeLay, but furrier and incapable of human speech.

HeyItsMatt wrote:I like to think that it's a squirrel politician, exiting from a woodland animal press conference, hiding his face in shame after having accepted illegal acorn contributions. Think Tom DeLay, but furrier and incapable of human speech.

Maybe your interpretation is less specific though.

Yours is pretty funny. Illegal acorn contributions...LOL

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To know what the people at a Japanese restruant are screaming at eachother. (this also will work for any one who has the time to learn Manderin) Plus, there are businesses where knowing Japanese will look VERY good on your resume.

[center]I think I'd rather not consider what will happen when I know "enough" to know what's going on, or what I'm reading in Japanese, or what I'm watching/listening to. I'd rather burn that bridge when I come to it.

To be most honest, personally, I first wanted to learn the language due to some cartoon I'd watched (how pathetic that I don't remember it now!), though that was a short-lived and small desire anyway. The very biggest influence though would be my uncle who works for the American Embassy in Japan. He and his wife came to visit my family when I was very young and Kai (I hope that's her name- my mother never could get it right) did not speak English. But she was so very nice! We "talked" a lot without ever speaking, and ever since I've wanted to know enough at least to communicate with her and my cousin Koi (I know I spelled that right). [/center]

I don't think there's anything wrong with people who get interested in Japanese through anime, or whose primary interest in studying Japanese is to watch anime. In my experience as a teacher, I have not noticed any direct link between interest in anime and performance in class.

What does sometimes happen is that people who are too focused on anime become bored in the beginning-level classes, and sometimes try to use things they learned from anime in class. We have people in class who greet us with "ya, sensee" because that's how they saw it done in an anime, and they won't listen when we tell them that's not an appropriate way to greet a teacher. But not all anime fans do this in class, and there are plenty of non anime fans that perform poorly in the class as well.

I think the biggest mistakes you can make relating anime to your class or studies are these:
1. "If it's not in an anime, I don't want to learn it."
2. "If what I see in my textbook seems to be contradicted by what I have picked up from anime, the anime is correct because it was made by Japanese people for Japanese people."
3. "What I see in anime is a 100% accurate depiction of real-life everyday Japanese."

You actually can learn quite a bit from anime about speech styles and the like, but not cold. You have to know something about the language, and about how anime exaggerates and formulizes(?) the various speech styles.